Google faces class action lawsuit over Chrome's data collection practices
Google is set to defend a class action lawsuit accusing the tech giant of unauthorized data collection through its browser, Chrome. The decision was made by a US federal appeals court on Tuesday, overturning a previous ruling from December 2022 that had dismissed the case. The court emphasized that Google's disclosures should have been examined by the lower court to determine if "a reasonable user reading them would think that he or she was consenting to the data collection."
Lawsuit alleges unauthorized data collection by Google
The class action lawsuit, initiated in 2020, accuses Google of collecting data from Chrome users irrespective of their use of the Chrome sync feature. This function allows users to save bookmarks, passwords, open tabs, and other data to their Google account for easy access across multiple devices. The plaintiffs allege that Chrome "intentionally and unlawfully" transmitted browsing history, IP addresses, persistent cookie identifiers, and unique browser identifiers to Google without explicit user consent.
Google's defense and initial case dismissal
In response to the allegations, Google contended that users had consented to data collection by accepting the company's privacy policy. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers initially sided with Google in her order granting dismissal of the case. She stated that "Google adequately disclosed, and plaintiffs consented to, the collection of the at-issue data." However, this decision has now been overturned by a federal appeals court.
Appeals court questions user understanding of agreement
Judge Milan D. Smith Jr., in his decision to overturn the initial dismissal, stated that Judge Rogers did not consider whether users truly understood the agreement with Google. He noted that "Google had a general privacy disclosure yet promoted Chrome by suggesting that certain information would not be sent to Google unless a user turned on sync." The case will now return to the lower courts for reconsideration based on these observations.
Google expresses disagreement with ruling
In response to the latest court decision, Google spokesperson Jose Castaneda stated, "We disagree with this ruling and are confident the facts of the case are on our side." He defended Chrome Sync as a tool that "helps people use Chrome seamlessly across their different devices and has clear privacy controls." Castaneda also revealed that Google will no longer require users to enable Chrome sync for accessing saved information, but clarified that "this announcement is not related to the litigation."
